BENGALURU: While one would credit former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy with starting Karnataka’s trend of shipping out own party MLAs to resorts in 2004 after a fractured mandate, the culture of poaching MLAs of other parties and herding them to resorts was kicked off by former BJP minister Gali Janardhana Reddy — the mastermind of political ‘acquisition and merger’ of MLAs in the state.
The shadow of Reddy, currently ostracised by the BJP, fights its way through the cracks of a fractured mandate even today.
The seeds of ‘Operation Kamala’ sown by Reddy in 2008 when he “convinced” seven MLAs of the Congress and JDS to leave their parties and join the BJP laid the foundation for government-altering resort politics in Karnataka. The current political crisis in Madhya Pradesh is the latest example of Reddy’s legacy to circumvent the anti-defection law.
Whether in 2002 or 2017, newly-appointed state Congress president DK Shivakumar displayed mastery in herding MLAs and keeping them under a tight vigil.
Even under the heat of Income Tax raids, Shivakumar succeeded in protecting the flock of 44 Gujarat MLAs and ensuring the re-election of Congress veteran Ahmed Patel to the Rajya Sabha.
In 2018 too, he was entrusted with the task of keeping Congress MLAs of Karnataka together soon after the assembly elections and again in the run-up to the coalition government’s floor test in 2019. While in the JDS or after jumping ship to the Congress, BZ Zameer Ahmed has been in the driver’s seat -- quite literally -- delivering legislators to resorts at times of crises.
MB Patil’s handling of legal issues and KJ George’s logistics helped the Congress play resort politics to perfection. While in the JDS, funds from MLC TA Sharavana and BM Farooq aided the party in tucking away party MLAs at resorts.
BJP leaders, however, took Reddy’s legacy a notch higher when they managed to not just approach miffed MLAs of JDS and Congress, but even skilfully whisked away Kagwad MLA Srimanth Patil from a resort where he along with other legislators was under ‘safekeep’.
His name later cropped up alongside BJP leader Laxman Savadi’s in a flight schedule. For this operation, Savadi was later rewarded with the deputy chief minister’s post, though he lost in the assembly election.
Now Deputy Chief Minister Ashwath Narayan — caught on camera at a Mumbai hotel in 2019 coordinating with rebel MLAs of Congress and JDS -- is counted among the masters of resort politics.
Yogeshwara is credited with beginning the second wave of ‘Operation Kamala’ to bring Yediyurappa-led BJP back to power. But the most reliable leader for the party’s central leadership seems to be Mahadevapura MLA Arvind Limbavali, who has reportedly been entrusted with the responsibility of taking care of Congress MLAs from Madhya Pradesh camping in Bengaluru. Whatever the mandate and whichever the party, resort politics is their favourite pick.